Empirically, we say of the “Dignity of the dead”, which corresponds to the dignity of human being. On the other hand, theoretically, we don’t understand why and to what degree the dead should have the dignity. This article intends to found this reason and construct the foundation for the general ethics of the dead. The strategy in this article would be called “ethics of the dead from below”, which contrasts with “one from above” that emphasizes the Otherness of the dead and distance between the dead and us.
There are two difficulties in admitting the dignity of the dead; the dead is the non-being who cannot suffer; we cannot affect and recover the way of being of the dead. But, recent philosophical investigations on the harm of death are solving the first difficulty by thinking that the dead can have ontological status in the symbolic or discursive levels. The second difficulty is solving by Ichinose’s thought how we would be harrowed by causal absence of the dead.
These philosophical efforts would contribute to the universal and formal foundation for the ethics of the dead.
